


Heart and Soul

by longleggedgit



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24742564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longleggedgit/pseuds/longleggedgit
Summary: Nagisa accidentally promises to confess his feelings for Rei if the shrine spirits will grant his wish and make him taller. The shrine spirits are jerks.“I saw a few doctors, but nobody really had an explanation,” he said. “Late growth spurts happen sometimes, but usually people only grow three or four centimeters at most.”Which means the only other explanation is that some shrine spirit decided to grant my accidental wish, and now I have to confess to my best friend that I’ve been in love with him since the day we met or a ghost will kill me, probably,he thought about adding, but Nitori already seemed pretty overwhelmed.
Relationships: Hazuki Nagisa/Ryuugazaki Rei
Comments: 18
Kudos: 95





	Heart and Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [don_amoeba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/don_amoeba/gifts).



> I said I'd write this for Don a year ago and now...here it is. I am the worst :')
> 
> The prompt was her idea and it was so cute and fun to write :) Thank you for being the absolute sweetest, Don ♥ 
> 
> Oh and yes, the title is definitely a _Big_ reference lol

“What are you going to wish for, Rei-chan?”

Rei lifted a finger and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose in the way that let you know you were in trouble. “You shouldn’t think of it as a  _ wish,  _ Nagisa-kun. It’s more of a prayer that you—”

“Boooring.” Nagisa skipped a few paces forward, feeling only a  _ little  _ bad about Rei’s offended huff. “Haru-chan, what are you going to wish for?”

Haru frowned in thought for a few seconds, then said seriously, “Mackerel.”

“But...don’t you eat that for dinner every day anyway?”

Haru stared at him.

“I suppose if you make a wish for something you already know you’re going to get, then you won’t be disappointed?” Makoto suggested. 

Nagisa rolled his eyes. “But the whole  _ point _ is to wish for something that’s hard to get! Like perfect scores on all your exams! Or a penguin! Or—”

“That’s _not_ the point!” Rei interrupted, obviously indignant. His breath was puffing out in angry little clouds in the cold air, which made Nagisa grin. “The point is to _seriously_ meditate on your deepest desires, as well as your connection to the spirit world, then to make a vow in exchange for their _consideration_ to—”

“Okay, okay! Serious meditating and vows, got it! You go first, Rei-chan!” Nagisa gave him a mostly gentle shove.

Rei glared, but obediently stepped up to the offertory box. It was a gray, drizzly kind of January day, which Nagisa didn’t usually like, but at least it meant they were alone at the shrine. Haru and Makoto were home for the holiday, so even though New Year’s Day had already passed, they were together one last time to make wishes— _ prayers, vows, WHATEVER _ —before everyone went back to school again.

“I didn’t know Rei took tradition so seriously,” Makoto said, smiling as they watched the back of Rei’s bowed head.

Nagisa hadn’t known, either. He tried not to fidget with impatience, but it was hard; Rei was taking a  _ long  _ time. Next year, Nagisa would make sure they went to the big shrine with enough room for everybody to pray at once.

Of course, that was assuming they would all have the opportunity to get together again like this next year. Nagisa frowned, his stomach lurching with too-familiar worry. He didn’t like thinking about the future much, so he tried to focus on Rei instead. Rei’s head had been bowed for so long that little beads of mist had started to settle in his hair, making it look shimmery, like a spider web in the morning. Nagisa’s stomach lurched a second time, which was unfortunately familiar, too. Why did he have to look so  _ pretty  _ all the time?

Rei’s head lifted, and the mist shimmered away. Nagisa swallowed hard and pushed past Makoto and Haru.

“My turn!” He avoided Rei’s gaze as he passed him on the steps, and barely came to a stop in front of the box before emptying a fistful of coins into it. He clapped his hands, closed his eyes, bowed his head, and...found his mind completely, distressingly, blank.

He had come up with  _ plenty  _ of ideas for today, and could still rattle off most from memory. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Rei had gotten him all mixed up, as  _ usual _ , and now all his wishes seemed shallow and wrong.

_ Gotta meditate first, I guess.  _ Nagisa breathed deep, like he was about to go underwater.  _ My deepest desires.  _ The mist in Rei’s hair flashed in front of his eyes, and he winced. He had thought about wishing for Rei to fall in love with him before, of course, about a thousand times, but it felt sneaky. He didn’t want some ancient god or spirit  _ making  _ Rei feel things, and anyway, something always seemed to go wrong with wishes like that in the old stories they had to read in Japanese class.

A voice that sounded like Rei’s reminded him:  _ It’s an exchange. You have to make a vow.  _ An exchange meant something difficult; Nagisa remembered that from the old stories, too. Spirits knew you weren’t taking things seriously if you didn’t offer something difficult for you to give.

_ I promise I’ll tell him how I really feel,  _ Nagisa thought. A moment passed, then two, before he realized, with a jolt of panic, that he didn’t know how to take a mental vow to the spirits back. 

_ BUT ONLY,  _ he thought, scrambling, pressing his hands together so tight it hurt,  _ ONLY _ — _ IF I GROW TALLER THAN HIM!  _ That hadn’t even been one of the wishes on today’s list, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was _ highly _ unlikely. Impossible, probably.

Nagisa opened one eye, then the other. Nothing happened. No magic gust of wind, no beam of sun shining down from behind a cloud. He dropped his hands and let his shoulders relax. It had been a waste of a wish, really. 

“Wow, Nagisa! You were up there even longer than Rei!” Makoto said.

“I was just trying to wish for as many things as possible!” Nagisa hurried down the steps, despite feeling a little shaky, and forced a bright smile. “Your turn, Mako-chan!”

Makoto approached the shrine, and Nagisa kept his eyes trained on his back so it would be easy to pretend not to notice Rei’s disapproving eyebrow lift.

“Tell me that’s not what you were _really_ doing up there,” Rei said.

Nagisa could feel a flush creeping up the back of his neck, but his eyes remained steadfastly forward. “I’ll never tell!”

Rei shook his head and sighed. Nagisa could handle that. He could handle annoying Rei, or disappointing him, or even making him mad, because he knew Rei would still be his friend through all of it. 

Confessions of unrequited love, on the other hand...Nagisa was pretty sure those were hard to recover from.

“How tall are you again, Rei-chan?” Nagisa asked, unable to help himself. He risked a cautious glance sideways.

“What?” Rei furrowed his brow. “You know very well I’m 179 centimeters. Why on earth do you ask?”

“No reason,” Nagisa said, but he couldn’t help a relieved smile. He had nothing to worry about.

  
  
  


“Na—Nagisa?  _ Hazuki Nagisa? _ Is that...you?”

Nagisa turned around, stumbling a little, to find Nitori standing stone-still in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking all foot traffic as he gaped at Nagisa.

To be specific: as he gaped  _ up  _ at Nagisa.

“Hi, Nitori-kun,” Nagisa said. He smiled in an awkward, apologetic sort of way, and stepped aside to allow other students to get past. Nitori was apparently frozen, so he reached over and tugged him out of the way, too.

“What  _ happened?”  _ Nitori sputtered. Which was kind of rude, but Nagisa couldn’t blame him, really.

He shrugged. “I had a late growth spurt?”

“But!” Nitori was still sputtering, which Nagisa endured patiently, only because he was getting used to it. “—That’s not—you can’t—it’s only been a year since the last time I saw you! You must be at  _ least _ seven centimeters taller—”

“Nine,” Nagisa corrected, with a small sigh.

“NINE?” Nitori staggered backward, falling heavily onto a bench that Nagisa doubted he had known was there. “Is that even  _ possible?” _

Nagisa shrugged again, taking a seat next to him. He hit his knee painfully against the rail of the bench as he sat, but hardly flinched; clumsiness was another thing he was getting used to.

“I saw a few doctors, but nobody really had an explanation,” he said. “Late growth spurts happen sometimes, but usually people only grow three or four centimeters at most.”

_ Which means the only other explanation is that some shrine spirit decided to grant my accidental wish, and now I have to confess to my best friend that I’ve been in love with him since the day we met or a ghost will kill me, probably,  _ he thought about adding, but Nitori already seemed pretty overwhelmed.

“I can’t believe it,” Nitori said. “I’m sorry, I—it’s really good to see you, I was hoping we would run into each other on campus! I just didn’t expect….”

“It’s okay,” Nagisa said, rubbing at his knee a little. “I didn’t really expect it, either.”

“Well...you’re lucky! I would kill to be even three centimeters taller.”

“I guess,” Nagisa said. 

He didn’t _feel_ lucky, and not only because every centimeter brought him that much closer to his stupid vow. In the last year he had lost entire nights of sleep to growing pains, worse than anything he’d ever experienced in middle school; he was covered in bruises from knocking his new too-tall, too-gangly limbs into everything; and his parents were about ready to disown him rather than pay for another closet’s worth of clothes in the next size up. He had just started to notice in the past week that his current set was looking a little small. The reminder made him grimace and tug at the cuffs of his jeans.

“Are you going home for the New Year?” Nitori asked. “Everyone will be  _ so  _ surprised to see you!”

This made Nagisa grimace even more. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s...gonna be weird.”

They said hurried goodbyes soon after, when Nitori realized he was about to be late for class, and promised to meet up after the holiday. Nagisa walked the rest of the way back to his apartment, only tripping over his own feet twice, and flopped face-down on his bed the moment he was inside. He could  _ feel  _ his ankles peeking out from under his jeans when he stretched his legs out, and he rolled over to glare at them.

“You are NOT allowed to be too short already,” he told his jeans, but it was no use pretending.

He got up, stood with his back straight against the now-very-marked-up doorframe, and drew a line over the top of his head. His stomach plummeted the long way down to his toes as soon as he stepped back to look. It was higher than last time. He fumbled for his measuring tape, but knew even before confirming what it would tell him: 179 centimeters.

He was officially  _ exactly  _ as tall as Rei.

_ “STOP,”  _ Nagisa begged, dropping the measuring tape and tilting his head toward the ceiling, just in case the shrine spirit was listening. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted. “THAT’S ENOUGH! I’M TALL ENOUGH NOW, THANK YOU!”

Nothing happened. Still no magic wind or light; not even his upstairs neighbor yelling at him to be quiet, which happened kind of a lot lately. Nagisa lowered his hands, pressed his forehead to the doorframe, and didn’t even try to stop the tears from coming.

“What am I going to do?” he whimpered, to himself instead of some stupid shrine spirit, but he didn’t have any answers, either.

  
  
  


_ Nagisa-kun. You’re avoiding me. _

_ no i’m not?? why would i avoid you rei-chan _

_ I don’t know. _

_ ok so that means i’m not _

_ Then why won’t you agree to meet with me?  _

Nagisa bit his lip and stared miserably down at his phone. He had no idea what to say. He’d been creating excuses not to see Rei for an entire year, even though their universities were only an hour’s train ride apart—too busy studying, too sick, sister visiting, _another_ sister visiting—but now they were both home, and had been for days, and Nagisa was running out of options.

_ i’m sick,  _ he started, but he’d used that too recently, so he deleted it. Had he already pretended his mom was sick? He typed  _ i _ , deleted it, hesitated, typed  _ i _ again. Before he could complete the thought, he got another message from Rei.

_ Do you not want to be friends with me anymore? _

“NO!” He yelled it out loud by accident, then slapped a hand over his mouth, listening to see if he’d woken up one of his sisters. It was early. No one banged on the wall, but he still pulled the blanket over his head to try and muffle any sound as he fumbled to hit the  _ Call  _ button on his phone. Rei answered, after less than a full ring, with a hoarse,  _ “Nagisa?” _

“Rei-chan, I’m sorry,” Nagisa whispered. “I—” He swallowed. There was no more getting around it. “I want to see you. I’m sorry. I miss you. Let’s—can you meet now?”

“Yes.” Rei’s voice really sounded awful, like he was sick, or...like he’d been crying. 

Nagisa let out a small, pained groan of guilt. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Meet me at the shrine from last year?”

“Okay.”

Rei hung up, and Nagisa blinked at his phone for a few dumbfounded seconds.

“Why did I choose the  _ shrine?” _

There wasn’t time to work out an answer. He tore the blanket off his head, leapt out of bed, and started desperately searching for clothes.

“It’ll be fine,” he muttered. He tugged on clean underpants, a  _ mostly  _ clean sweater, and finally unearthed a pair of only slightly rumpled jeans from under his travel bag. “I’ll apologize and it’ll be fine and—and maybe the spirit will stop it if I make a different wish!”

He was, after all, still only the  _ same  _ height as Rei. He didn’t have to confess  _ yet.  _

This was his only reassurance for the entire twenty-minute train ride and ten-minute jog to the shrine, and he clung to it stubbornly, refusing for even a second to dwell on the other thought that had occurred to him as he was struggling into his jeans: the cuffs were looking a little short again.

_ Doesn’t matter anyway,  _ Nagisa thought, breathless as he jogged up the shrine steps. Rei wasn’t there yet, which was perfect, because it gave Nagisa the time he needed to pray. He dug in his pockets for a coin—500 yen, no spirit could ignore  _ that _ —clapped twice, and closed his eyes with what he hoped appeared to be deep, pious concentration. 

_ Okay, so here’s the thing,  _ he thought.  _ I’m really grateful for all your help granting my wish and everything, but I think I was a little greedy, and you’ve already been REALLY generous, so if you want to just stop here _ — _ you can even take it all back and make me short again if you want!—that’d be great. _

Nagisa risked opening one eye, looking for a sign of acknowledgement. There was nothing, but that had been true the first time, too. How would he know if the spirit was listening?

He snapped his eye shut again and added,  _ And last year I didn’t even make a good vow, right? Like, why would you care if I confessed my true feelings or whatever? So if you want, you can take the wish back AND I’ll make a new, BETTER vow to do something you’d actually enjoy, like...bring you beer, or um...I could try fasting? Or…. _

Nagisa frowned and wracked his brain, wishing he’d paid better attention in Japanese class. What  _ did _ spirits like, other than torturing lovesick teenagers?

“...Nagisa?”

It shouldn’t have felt like such a shock to hear Rei’s voice, since Nagisa had been expecting him, but Nagisa jumped all the same. He turned away from the shrine with a sick, sour taste in his mouth.

Rei was only a little ways away, his chest heaving with short breaths and his brow furrowed, like he wasn’t sure of his eyes.

Nagisa sighed, defeated, and stepped down.

“Nagisa,” Rei said again. His eyes widened as Nagisa approached. “You’re—”

“Taller?”

Rei’s mouth hung open, but he seemed unable to speak, so Nagisa seized the opportunity to take him in, even though it hurt. The vantage point was different, but Rei was just the same as Nagisa remembered: outfit carefully assembled; hair meticulous; glasses fogging up; cheeks a little flushed, from the cold, maybe, or something else he couldn’t put a name to.

“How...?” Rei finally managed.

“Weird, right?” Nagisa tried to inject his tone with as much cheerfulness as possible. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Rei’s gaze, so he fixed his eyes downward, at their feet. “I must be as tall as you now!”

“I think,” Rei said, taking a half-step closer, the tips of his shoes lining up with Nagisa’s, “you might be taller.”

Panic flared in Nagisa’s chest. Already hot tears were threatening to spill down his cheeks, but he blinked them back, furious, and forced himself to lift his head. Rei’s eyes were fixed on him, questioning but steadfast. And Nagisa had to look down to meet them.

“I’m taller,” Nagisa echoed. He huffed out a short, miserable laugh, and realized dazedly that his legs were shaking. He lowered himself to the bottom step of the shrine and put his forehead in his hands. This was it. He was too late.

“Nagisa?” Rei hesitated, then took a seat beside him, even though there was barely room on the step for two. “Are you alright?”

“No.” If he said any more, he’d start crying, so he screwed his eyes shut tight and gritted his teeth.

There was a pause, then Rei’s hand, cautious, came to rest on Nagisa’s shoulder. “Are you upset about...being tall?”

“No. Yes. Kind of.” His voice was already wavering, and one tear had escaped to roll down his cheek. He brushed it impatiently away. “It’s complicated.”

“Can you say a little more?” 

“It’s kind of a funny story, actually!” It wasn’t, but Nagisa didn’t have any defenses left other than to joke, so he laughed, short and strained. At least this way it was harder to tell he was crying. “You know when we came here last year? And we were going to make wishes, only you said that wasn’t right, they were more like prayers, like  _ vows,  _ and we had to  _ promise  _ something if we wanted the spirits to listen?”

Rei’s hand on his shoulder squeezed, in reassurance or just to show he was listening. Either way, it felt good, and at least when Nagisa was talking it meant he wasn’t thinking, so he hurried on.

“So I did! I promised—but that was the problem, I made the promise  _ first,  _ I just didn’t think about it, and by the time I realized what I’d promised it was too late to take it back, so I wished for something I didn’t think any spirit would ever give me, that way I wouldn’t actually have to do it—” 

His words were coming too fast, and he knew he was rambling now, hard to follow. Sure enough, Rei interrupted, “Nagisa—I’m not sure I understand what you’re—”

“I promised I’d tell you!” Nagisa choked out. “It was an accident, but I’d already promised! So then I said—or I  _ thought,  _ or  _ meditated  _ or whatever, I don’t know—I said  _ but only if you make me taller than him!  _ And I thought that would be enough, I thought there was no way any spirit would actually do it, but I guess SOME shrine spirits just REALLY LIKE to RUIN PEOPLE’S LIVES!”

Nagisa was crying openly now. There was no hiding it, so he lifted his head for that last part, directing his shouts over his shoulder toward the shrine.

“I still—I’m still not following,” Rei said, when Nagisa finally stopped shouting to wipe his eyes and nose.

“Rei-chan.” Nagisa pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m in love with you.” He couldn’t look at him when he said it, couldn’t bear the thought of it, so he kept pressing and pressing, until black spots bloomed under his eyelids.

“You... _ what?”  _ It sounded like a gasp the way Rei said it, like the words took all his breath with them.

“I’m in love with you!” It felt  _ good  _ to say it again, almost, because what was the point in holding back anymore, now that it was out there? Nagisa dropped his hands and glared down at them, plowing stubbornly on. “I’ve been in love with you forever. Well—since I met you, I guess, but it  _ feels _ like forever. Sometimes it feels like I loved you before I met you, I just didn’t know it yet? Which sounds stupid, but I just know there was a time before Rei-chan and a time after, and the time before kind of just felt like I was getting ready to find you, or something.”

Tears were still falling, landing gently on Nagisa’s hands as he curled them into fists. He didn’t care. He didn’t care that he was crying, and he  _ especially  _ didn’t care that he was going on and on, because as long as he was talking it meant Rei couldn’t put a gentle hand on his shoulder and tell him, sadly, that it would never work. 

“But I wasn’t going to tell you, because I know you don’t—I  _ know _ —and I never want to lose you, you’re my best friend and I’d rather you be that forever even if I have to pretend than not have you anymore. And then I had to make that STUPID wish and that STUPID promise! And it started happening almost right away, only at first I thought I was just imagining it, and then I told myself I was just growing a  _ little  _ bit, but every month I was getting taller and taller, and my  _ legs  _ always hurt and my  _ clothes  _ were always too small and I kept running into  _ everything,  _ and it was the worst year  _ ever  _ because I didn’t want to talk to you or see you because I was too scared if I did it would mean I would have to fulfill my promise, and I knew if I did that you’d stop talking to me, but if I didn’t a ghost would KILL ME!”

Nagisa’s whole face was wet with snot and tears. He wanted to find something to blow his nose with, but looking around right now would mean risking a glance of Rei’s face, so he just sat and sniffed and dripped. Rei was silent beside him, except that he was sniffing, too. Sniffing a  _ lot,  _ actually.

“Nagisa-kun,” Rei said, and Nagisa had no choice but to finally look up, because it was obvious from his voice that  _ Rei  _ was crying, too.

Nagisa stared. Even with blurred vision, he could see that Rei’s eyes were wet and shining, his brow creased with concern, but his mouth—was he actually  _ smiling? _

“Did you really think—” Rei started, but he stopped, laughing in a hiccuping sort of way. “Can I tell you what I prayed for?”

This wasn’t at all what Nagisa had been expecting. He nodded and sniffed, moving to wipe his nose with his sleeve, but Rei pulled a pack of tissues out of his pocket before he could ruin his sweater. He took one to dab at his own eyes and handed Nagisa the rest.

“Thanks,” Nagisa said, blowing his nose immediately. It took three tissues before he was recovered enough for Rei to go on.

“I prayed,” Rei said, “for the courage to tell you how I felt.” His face screwed up then, the smile disappearing from his mouth. “And I couldn’t do it.”

Nagisa dropped the tissues. “Wait. You mean—you mean that  _ you _ —”

“Of course!” Rei snapped. Even though he was still crying, he looked angry _._ “Of course I’m in love with you! I always thought—everyone _said_ it! They all said I was so _obvious!_ But you’re so direct, so if you didn’t—you must have _known,_ you couldn’t have _not_ _known,_ so since you didn’t do anything it must have meant you didn’t feel the same way.”

“Oh my god, Rei-chan.” Nagisa’s heart was hammering, his hands shaking. He twisted around, groping desperately for the pack of tissues. “You have to blow your nose right now.”

“What?” Rei recoiled, scowling. “Why?”

Nagisa thrust the tissues at him. “Because I’m going to kiss you.”

Rei’s eyes widened, but he accepted the tissues without further protest. He had barely finished dabbing at his cheeks before Nagisa was moving in, heart thrilling at how easily Rei let himself be guided forward. All it took was a little nudge, a hand at the small of his back, and Rei was pressed all the way against him, hands hovering for a moment before landing cautiously on Nagisa’s chest.

“Don’t you think we should—”

“Later,” Nagisa said. 

The kiss was, predictably, wet. They were both still teary-eyed, and now that they were this close Nagisa could tell Rei’s hands were trembling as much as his were, and they kept having to break apart to catch their breath because their noses were stuffed up. 

It was the best kiss  _ ever. _

“Did you really think,” Rei said—at the third or fourth or seventh, maybe?—pause for air, “that a ghost would kill you?”

“Shut up,” Nagisa said. “It  _ might  _ have.  _ You  _ don’t know.”

Rei hiccup-laughed again. “I don’t think failing to fulfill your promise means you’re going to  _ die _ . It just means if your wish was granted, it will go back to the way it was before.”

“Oh,” Nagisa said. “Well. I guess it’s okay, since now I get to be taller than you  _ and  _ make out with you.”

Rei sputtered  _ very  _ cutely, and Nagisa was just about to lean in for another round when he caught the sound of approaching voices. Some other students on holiday, probably.

Nagisa stood, offering a hand to help Rei up. “Wanna come over?” he asked.

Rei let himself be tugged to his feet and dusted himself off before smiling  _ up  _ at Nagisa. Nagisa grinned; this new vantage point was going to be fun. 

“Yes,” Rei said. He didn’t let go of Nagisa’s hand.

They only made it a few steps down the path before Nagisa stopped in his tracks. “Wait. Rei-chan.” 

Rei looked a little alarmed. “What is it?”

“I just realized this means I can  _ kabedon _ you.”

Instead of brushing him off in irritation, to Nagisa’s surprise and  _ considerable  _ excitement, Rei  _ blushed.  _

“That’s!” Rei stammered, turning away and pushing his glasses up his nose and oh no, he was _so_ _cute._ “Well. Of course, it’s not. That is to say, I wouldn’t _necessarily_ ….”

Nagisa grinned, knowing full well that he probably looked a little evil. “Come on,” he said, gripping Rei’s hand even tighter and taking off at a brisk walk. “We have to find a wall  _ right  _ now.”

Rei didn’t say anything else, but he did squeeze Nagisa’s hand in a way that was  _ very  _ promising.


End file.
